SB Nation User Blog: zenbitz

Sabremetrics, 1917 style

zenbitz — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:53:40 -0000

Sabremetrics, 1917 style

Awesome article for 1917... first use of linear weights in baseball?

Giants Drinking Game (2009)

zenbitz — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:45:19 -0000

(originally appeared in Gameday thread part II of postponed RJ 300 game @ Nats)

I did a quick search, but I still can't believe no one thought of this...

Your! 2009 Giants Drinking game.

Get an alcoholic beverage. Define a “drink” and a “chug”. A chug should equal 1 12 oz. beer, 1 shot of hard liquor, or 1 4 oz. glass of wine. There are approximately 10 drinks to a chug. Feel free to alter to your taste/liver/probability of getting up in the morning.

Take a drink whenever:

Any Giants player swings at the first pitch
Any Giants player hits into a double play
Any Giants pitcher walks a batter
Rich Aurillia fakes a bunt
Sandoval hits a ball no where near the strike zone
Brian Wilson puts the lead of man on.
Fred Lewis looks at strike 3

Chug a drink whenever

Bochy Double switches
Velez gets picked off (sadly no longer on roster)
Molina or Sandoval draws a walk
Aaron Rowand runs into something
Burriss gets an extra base hit- Giants get a runner to third with no outs and fail to score
Molina or Sandoval hit a triple (or inside the parker!)
Schierholtz gets into a game
Giants get a runner to third with no outs and fail to score

current 3B hitting stats

zenbitz — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:34:32 -0000

current 3B hitting stats

Are you kidding me? Pedro Feliz has a .382 OBA and 10% walk rate?

If this holds up for the season, I will personally execute every hitting coach in the Giants system from Augusta up. Then feed the corpses to Sabean until his intestines burst.

Meta Discussion FTW!

zenbitz — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:59:39 -0000

Meta Discussion FTW!

The key point herein is that "And then Rich Aurillia hit into a double play" is the new "And I am also of the opinion that Carthage should be destroyed.

In defense of the 25 man

zenbitz — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:37:30 -0000

OK, this is wierd. I am going to make a defense of the Sabean De-Boch-able that is the April 2009 25 man roster. Also - the original thread hit 1200 comments and is busted like a Dravecky Wing.

Consider that I am highly critical of Sabean's (and a lesser extent, Boch's) decisions WHEN THERE IS EVIDENCE that they are wrong. That means, if a decision is a scouting or coaching decision, I have no choice but to shrug and hope they know what they are doing. I also do not care, nor take as evidence, anything said to or by the media that is not independently verifiable. Finally, I am totally ignoring spring stats, as they are utterly meaningless.

In order of MCC outrage:

6th and 7th Relievers: What ever. It's a shit sandwich and we all have to take a bite.

Burriss over Frandsen. Well, I think it's clear that 1 should start and the other should start in AAA. THIS POINT IS KEY. Because if you have both on the ML roster, then many of the shenanigans below don't make sense. They both need the reps. I cannot imagine the 2009 Manny out hitting the 2009 Kevvie but I suppose it could be close enough that Burriss' defense (and we certainly could use IF defense) is the deciding factor. So, "meh" but have little hard evidence other than Burriss projects to a .300 wOBA and Frandsen a .318 or so. It's certainly possible that defense closes this gap by a lot, and neither of these guys have reliable def. stats.

Bench - Other than the guys guarenteed to make the team:

Uribe: wOBA(avg proj) .300

Velez: wOBA (avg proj) .317

Torres: wOBA (avg proj) .313

Aurillia: wOBA (avg proj) .319

Uribe can play 3B/SS/2B. Aurillia can play 3B/1B. Velez "2B/LF". Torres: OF

None of these guys are prospects, and another year in AAA doesn't really do squat for them. I would have put Phelps or maybe even Bowker on the the team instead of Aurillia - but perhaps their 1B defense is really unacceptable poor. In any case, one will come up if Ishikawa commits suppuku with the bat. Note that if you cut Aurillia, you cannot get him back (no way he goes to AAA), and that leaves only Pablo and Uribe as 3B. You could take Guzman instead... but he can't play D and is probably well served with some glove/bat time at AAA.

Uribe also backs up SS/2B... but that leaves only 1 back up MI. Enter Velez. He's only going to play 2B if 2 of Burriss/Renteria/Uribe are down, and the other is playing 2B... There are also some (extra inning?) shenanigans where Aurillia is playing 1B, Pablo C, Uribe 3B, Burris/Rent/ SS and Velez is needed to play 2B.

So what it comes down to is Torres vs. Holm vs. X. I don't have a problem AT ALL with Sandoval playing C. He should play all the C his chunky lil' body can handle. He is only going to be a star at C, he will never be more than a solid regular at 1B/3B because his bat isn't that good and neither is his IF defense (this is just a guess, btw so please don't argue... the fact remains no matter how good a 3B he is, he will be a better Catcher, relative to his peers, if he can stick at the position).

The only "problem" with Pablo as Bengie's primary backup is that you can't give them both the same "off" day. You *can* PH for Bengie, and slide Pablo over (down?) anytime you want, because you have a couple other guys who can play 3B.

So really - would you rather have Holm on the bench than Torres? Keep in mind that Holm has about 1 whole season of PAs - TOTAL - in the last 3 years. And Velez isn't really a back up OF - he's the 3rd string 2B and pinch runner. Now, does Torres defense suck? I dunno. But I bet it's better than Holm's OF defense! Or Velez' for that matter. Would I rather have Bowker or Phelps than Torres? Sure. I suspect what is going on is that someone on GINTS BRASS decided to take the "statement" that "AT&T really has two centerfields" to heart, and refuses to play a mediocre corner OF in RF. So while Winn and Rowand can both play CF - the other is needed to play RF. Lewis is probably the worst of the 3, so he can sub at RF in a pinch if the other two are down... but then we need someone to play CF - and that has to be Torres.

Now - there are other solutions - mostly involving Frandsen, but if you start from the assumption that one of Burriss and Frandsen goes to AAA... the roster they came up with is not really that wacky.

Finally - I COMMEND Giants' brass for thinking a little outside the box here and not going with the obvious "back up catcher wasting 25th spot"

Trade Value of Randy Winn

zenbitz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:41:50 -0000

The Redsox just traded Coco Crisp to the Royals for relief pitcher Ramon Ramirez. Crisp is like a younger, slightly worse Randy Winn. He is due <$6M next year with a small ($500K) buyout for 2010.

Marcel projects Crisp with a .321 wOBA and Winn with a .329 (both.8+ reliability). I think Winn is probably the better defender, but it's hard to say because Crisp usually plays more CF. Still, he's certainly cheaper and younger than Winn.

Ramirez is a solidly average bullpen arm.

World Series Dilemma Poll

zenbitz — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:50:52 -0000

So, the inevitably horrible has happened (unless you own stock in Disney/ESPN) and the Dodgers are playing the Red Sox in the World Series. Do you wish for a stray meteor to strike the stadium and kill the TEAMS (whole 40-man, +coaches, management, etc.) or the FANS at the park.

Or do you split the difference? Does it matter where they are playing?

Bonus question: If you can spare ONE mortal from each team, who would it be?

Poll

Which deserves the meteor?

Hit the Teams!

11 votes

Hit the Fans!

25 votes

I'm ambivalent (like a clam), kill Dodger Team, Red Sox Fans

37 votes

I'm wishy-washy, kill Dodger Fans, Red Sox Team

9 votes

82 votes | Poll has closed

Immortal Indignity

zenbitz — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:11:38 -0000

At the beginning of the season I wondered if the Giants could manage to put together one of the worst offensive infields of all time. This you can measure with a stat call sOPS+ - which measures how well your IF hits relative to the leagues' infields (100 would be average). The 1985 Giants and 2007 Giants racked up bad, but not historically score sOPS+ of 80 and 81. The record is the 1995 Cards with an astronomically awful 66.

After a hot May and Durham resurgence, this Giants squad looked to be run of the mill bad... but with Vizquel entrenched at the sub-neifi line, and a cold summer for 1B... The Giants infield sOPS+ now stands at 77!

Now this data only runs back to 1958, but hey, that's a good starting point:

1995 STL 66
1982 OAK 71
2003 DET 71
1999 ANA 74
1977 OAK 75
2002 DET 75 (two years in a row this low)
1972 TEX 76
1979 SDP 76
1981 TOR 76
1989 ATL 76
2004 SEA 76
1965 HOU 77
1983 SEA 77
1983 NYM 77
1994 CAL 77
2000 TBD 77
2003 CLE 77

So the 2008 Giants are in a tie for 12th (or alternatively, have the 6th worst sOPS+). I I doubt they can crack 70, but some weak hacking and bizzare callups could drop them down past the 1999 Angels!

How bad have the Giants SS been?

.214/.283/.260  

Johnnie Lemaster, Career: .222/.277/.289
Neifi Perez, WORST season (OPS+ of 44!)  .236/.260/.303

Defensive Perception

zenbitz — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:59:45 -0000

Have you ever noticed how the worse a teams' offense, the better perceived it's defense (including pitching)? I have noticed this for the last couple years with the Giants and 49ers. In the 49ers case, the defense hasn't even been average, merely not "historically awful". I have heard excuses (which don't apply to baseball) that "it's because the defense is on the field so much" - but that doesn't stop many teams from having good defenses and terrible offenses.

Some numbers: by Football Outsiders DVOA, the niners ranked 32nd in offense, and 28th in defense. That's bad. By comparison, the number 1 ranked defense (Tennessee) had the 21st ranked offense, and the Ravens coupled the 9th best defense with the 26th best offense.

I see a similar thing going on with the Giants in the view of their pitching. The Giants pitching/defense is not good. It's merely average. Now compared to their utter ineptitude on offense, it seems like a bright spot - but getting past Lincecum and Cain there is some talent but not much in the way of results (although Brian Wilson has been quite good in high leverage situations).

Fan Post Registration Fan Post

zenbitz — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:38:51 -0000

So, it has been mentioned, many, many times that there are too many fan posts, and particularly too many on the same subjects. So, I would propose to use this Fan Post thread as an area where future fan posts topics can be vetted and approved by the community - so that we don't have to waste our precious time reading redundant fan posts - or even worse - berating those who "accidentally" post another fan post when a perfectly adequate one already exists.

I really think that having a forum where we can suggest and debate the validity of topics proposed before they actually appear as topics will substantially improve the signal-to-noise ratio of McCovey Chronicles.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

A concerned MCC net.denizen